Five Generations
Anna Benjamin:
Great-great-grandmother of Yechiel Eliad Menachem
Above is a photograph of five generations. My mother-in-law, Anna Benjamin (99), is sitting surrounded by her daughter, my wife Miriam (65), our daughter Iyrit Bouskila (45), our granddaughter Inbal Peretz (24) and her son Yechiel Eliad Menachem Peretz (8 days old).
Anna and LeoMy amazing mother-in-law drove her red Volvo from her home at Beit Juliana in Herzliya to our home in Petach Tikva through the fast-moving highway traffic of Route 5 until she was 98 when they didn’t renew her license. When she was younger, a motorcycle was her way to get around Israel. She was born in Amsterdam, the granddaughter of the Chief Rabbi of The Netherlands, Yosef Tzvi Dunner, married Moshe Yehuda (Leo) Benjamin also born in Amsterdam. They lived in the Dutch colony, Suriname, where my wonderful wife and her three siblings were born. Living at the edge of the Amazon jungle saved them from the fate of all their relatives who remained in Holland and were murdered by the Nazis. After the Holocaust, the Benjamin family made aliyah to the new-born State of Israel where they lived in the farming village Hibat Tzion.
Miriam and MelI met Miriam in Queens where her family lived for a few years. I grew up in Queens although I was born in Brooklyn. My father was born in New Jersey and my mother in Boston. Miriam and I were married in Brooklyn in 1959 and our daughter, Iyrit, was born in Queens. In 1969, with our three American-born children, we moved to Israel.
Iyrit and ShlomoIyrit met Shlomo Bouskila at B’nai Akiva youth group and they were married when they were both 18. Shlomo was born in Casablanca making aliyah with his family when he was two years old. Their first child, Renana, was born in Rehovot. After Shlomo finished his army service, they went to stay with my parents in Florida where Inbal was born.
Inbal and MosheInbal grew up in Israel and meet Moshe Peretz in cyberspace. After an Internet dialogue they met in real space, fell in love and married. Moshe was born in Haifa. His father was born in Morocco and his mother in Tunisia. My great-grandson was born in Petach Tikvah on the birthday of the Lubavicher Rebbe. He was named for Moshe’s late father and the Rebbe.
From Generation to GenerationFrom generation to generation, they will dwell in the Land of Israel
where the wilderness will rejoice over them,
the desert will be glad and blossom like a lily.
Her wilderness will be made like Eden
and her desert like a Divine garden.
Joy and gladness will be found there,
thanksgiving and the sound of music. (Isaiah 35:1, 50:3)
The Future of Art in a Digital Age:
From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness
By Mel Alexenberg
Bristol, UK: Intellect Books.
in USA: University of Chicago Press
In his book, Mel Alexenberg navigates his artistic insight amid the labyrinthian complexities, explosions, and revolutions of the past forty years of art, tracing his way amid questions of science and religion, technology and environment, education, culture, and cosmos. Everyone will find his book full of new vantage points and vistas, fresh insights that give a uniquely personal history of artistic time that indeed points to new and open futures.
- Lowry Burgess, Dean, Professor of Art, Distinguished Fellow of the Studio for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
This is a wonderful and important book. The author links the history of art to the important role played by various forms of thinking in the Jewish tradition and connects that to the emerging culture of digital expression. Brilliant insights and new ways of seeing make this a must-read for anyone interested in the intellectual history of images in the 21st Century.
- Ron Burnett, author of How Images Think (MIT Press, 2005), President of Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada.
Mel Alexenberg, a very sophisticated artist and scholar of much experience in the complex playing field of art-science-technology, addresses the rarely asked question: How does the "media magic" communicate content?
- Otto Piene, Professor Emeritus and Director, MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The author succeeds in opening a unique channel to the universe of present and future art in a highly original and inspiring way. His connection between ancient concepts (Judaism) and the present digital age will force us to thoroughly rethink our ideas about art, society and technology. This book is evidence that Golem is alive!
- Michael Bielicky, Professor and Head of the Department of InfoArt/Digital Media at Hochschule fur Gestaltung, ZKM Center for Art and Media, in Karlsruhe, Germany.
This book is simply a must read analysis for anyone interested in where we and the visual arts are going in our future. Alexenberg has provided us with powerful new lenses to allow us to "see" how postmodern art movements and classical Judaic traditions compliment and fructify one another as the visual arts are now enlarging and adding a spiritual dimension to our lives in the digital era.
- Moshe Dror, co-author of Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for the 21st Century (Praeger, 2003), President of World Network of Religious Futurists, and Israel Coordinator of World Future Society.
Like the Torah itself that Alexenberg refers to regularly, the book is complex. He writes in a lively, engaging style.... I found it informative, optimistic, and spiritually refreshing.
- Rob Harle, Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology
If Jacques Derrida had not preceded him, Alexenberg would be the Jewish Marshall Mcluhan…. Alexenberg’s art and scholarship represents son of the most innovative work being made in both the Jewish and non-Jewish art worlds.
- Menachem Wecker, Forward
This book is amazing, so deep and insightful and full of sweet revelations at each turn of the page! It rocks the world and brings some desperately needed light.
- David Lazerson, author of Skullcaps ‘N Switchblades. Performing artist and education professor.
This Hebraic-postmodern quest is for a dialogue midway on Jacob's ladder where man and God, artist and society, and artwork and viewer/participant engage in ongoing commentary.
- Randall Rhodes, Professor and Chairman, Department of Visual Art, Frostburg State University, Maryland.
The Future of Art in a Digital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness opens new vistas in the attempts to reconcile the newest developments in digital art and postmodern critical perspectives with the ancient concerns of the arts with the spiritual. It offers fresh perspectives in how we can learn from Greek and Jewish thought to understand the present era.
- Stephen Wilson, author of Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology (MIT Press, 2002) and Professor of Conceptual and Information Arts at San Francisco State University.
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